Worth It? An App to Get a Cab

It used to be that only the royals and the wealthy could summon a car service with the tap of a button or a hand signal to Jeeves.

Now, mobile apps are aiming to solve car-finding problems through your smartphone. I tested one such app, called Uber, which is free to download; the ride, however, is set at a premium price.

My first experience with the Uber iPhone app was in San Francisco, where the venture-funded start up launched in 2010. It was a rainy day in the city, making it especially difficult to hail a cab. My attempts to call cabs from three different local services were unsuccessful, so I created an account with Uber by entering my name, email and credit card information. The app used my location to locate available car services in the area, and I requested a car. Within 12 minutes, a town car had pulled up.

While the car was making its way to me, I was able to track it through the app on my iPhone. The app offered me the option to call the driver, a much more direct way of communicating than having to call a dispatcher and recite my order info again.

Upon exiting the car, I was immediately emailed a receipt. The total, which included tip and an $8 base fare, came to $31.00, a much steeper fare than a standard cab service would have charged, but since I was rushing to the airport that day it was forgivable. Plus, the car had candy and soda in the back seat. That’s worth $8…right?

A second Uber experience in San Francisco was just as easy and convenient. But in New York City, where there’s a $7 base fare for Uber, I found myself wishing I’d just hailed a taxi cab, as challenging as that can be late afternoon in midtown Manhattan. The Uber app said the driver would arrive in nine minutes, but due to traffic and the fact that the car initially drove past me, it actually took half an hour.

Since the service launched in New York last month, there have been some small complaints about the ability to catch an Uber cab, and the company’s CEO Travis Kalanick says it’s growing so quickly there is a supply chain issue in New York. The state’s regulatory environment for transportation services also differs from California’s, and Uber may face challenges in getting large car service companies on board with the mobile platform.

I also tested an iOS app called Taxi Magic, which helped me call a city cab service in San Francisco that took me across town for $12. In New York, though, Taxi Magic referred me to just two car services, one that cautioned it was a high-priced executive service and another that said it couldn’t pick me up in less than a half hour. After all that, I hailed a New York City yellow cab. Good thing I hadn’t booked an Uber that time: there’s a $10 cancellation charge.

It’s worth noting that the introduction of mobile technology into cab services could help drum up more business for the drivers and, ultimately, fleet owners. Research from UpStart Mobile’s Cabulous, a technology engine for car services that was created in 2008 as part of a Best Buy, Inc. entrepreneur program, has shown that up to 47% of drivers’ time on the job can be downtime, and points to driver downtime resulting in as much as $5 billion a year in losses. Two drivers I spoke with said they’ve been much busier since they’ve begun responding to mobile app requests.

And it benefits Uber to keep them busy. Uber gets only a small cut of each transaction, and that’s the company’s main source of revenue. (Other cab apps, like Cabulous, may charge the car services a per vehicle or fleet fee per month to be on board.) At the same time, Uber doesn’t own any vehicles, so it avoids the costs associated with maintenance and fuel.

So is Uber worth it? In San Francisco, it is. In New York, it wasn’t for me. The company is planning on launching in Boston, D.C., Chicago and Seattle in the coming months, and in other cities it could possibly provide a viable and elegant solution the way it does in the Bay Area. Cab app companies are on to something. But if you do find yourself spending more time working the apps, it might be worth it just to hail a taxi the old-fashioned way. Or, you know, just call Jeeves.